Pittards plans Addis Ababa gloves factory
UK tanning group Pittards plans to open a factory in Addis Ababa that will produce industrial gloves and is expected to start production by August 2011, according to John Moriarty, managing director of Ethiopian Tannery, a subsidiary of Pittards.
The company recently received its investment licence for the factory, which is to be named Pittards Product Manufacturing, from the Ethiopian Investment Agency (EIA) and subsequently bought a building in the Saris area for the purpose of housing the factory, according to Dagnachew Demelash, finance director at Ethiopian Tannery.
The new factory is expected to cost $718,000 and at the start of production is expected to produce an estimated 40,000 pairs of industrial gloves per month, with between 75% and 80% of the gloves to be exported to the US (30,000 pairs) and the others mainly to Europe, and a small amount is to be sold in Ethiopia.
Pittards plans to purchase the raw materials for their factory from Ethiopia Tannery, which is located in Modjjo Town, 73km southeast of Addis Abeba.
“We expect to produce leather crusts as well as manufacture and sell exclusively finished leather products in three to five years’ time,” Mr Moriarty said.
The company has had difficulties in finding raw materials, and experienced logistical problems in obtaining chemicals for the leather they produce, he claimed. Chemical supplies are stranded in Djibouti Port, and the dry ports and the airline’s cargo services cannot meet the demands of their production capacity, the managing director said.
“This problem is causing us to refuse taking to take more orders because our customers need our products within three weeks of the sales agreement,” Mr Moriarty said.
